Design and Implementation of a Mobile Network Management Tool for Wireless Site Surveying

ABSTRACT: “Everywhere Wi-Fi” across the campus of Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) is a very positive and exciting experience for faculty, staff, students, and visitors. Having instant access to web sites, email, the Internet, and other IT services regardless of location can dramatically change the way of study and learning. The increasing utilization of networks, especially wireless local area networks (WLANs), for different applications and in aspects of modern life, has resulted in a lot of studies towards the analysis and optimal design of WLANs. Deploying a large-scale, campus-wide Wi-Fi system presents many challenges that affect delivery of internet services. These challenges are managing, monitoring, coverage, capacity and density evaluation and security assessment. In this study, we focus on the managing and monitoring aspects of the WLANs by designing and developing a software framework “EMUWiFiManager” as a mobile network management application on the Android platform. The application stores and displays basic information about the access points by using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and displays their locations on Google maps. With the developed application, we conducted a measurement study and collected data for reporting and visualizing the network utilization of a campus wireless network. Keywords: Wi-Fi access points, mobile networks, Android OS, network management. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………